Hot n Cold about The Girl who Played with Fire

Though I am typically old-fashioned when it comes to reading, I decided to take on my first i-pad novel a few days ago when stuck on a 6 hour plane ride with no alternative entertainment besides my AP Bio book. I've come to see that there are some perks to the electronic novel life; you read more quickly, it's easy to carry around, and they have this nifty little thing where you can see what percentage of the book you have read. One downside (besides the fact that it doesn't feel as homey to curl up on a rainy day with a mug of tea...and an i-pad) is that you can't go back pages. Since I can't look back a few chapters, I can only tell you that a murder occurred around 32% of the way through The Girl Who Played With Fire. Just before the murder occurred, one of the two main characters was placed at the scene of the crime in a rather suspenseful situation.

The book (or the series for that matter) is written in third person but basically follows one character at a time. I don't know the official term for the point of view I am describing, but I guess I would call it third person personal. For example when it is following main character Mikael Blomkvist, the reader is privy to Blomkvist's thoughts and he is the center of attention. There is a paragraph break and a space to clarify when the point of view changes to follow another lead character. As mentioned before, one of these lead characters was being followed to the scene of the crime. The novel did not follow her until the time of the murder, but instead left us hanging a few hours beforehand. So far, the reader has only heard of and about the murder from other sources, mainly journalists and police investigators.

This account I am giving is from 44% of the way through. This means that 12% of a 648 page novel has been dedicated to making the reader wonder if our main character is a killer. It is so frustrating, for a couple reasons. Reason one is the most obvious - I'm curious and I want to know. I have faith in the character, but the situation is fuzzy so I want to know her motive for committing the crime if she did in fact do so (which I find doubtful). Reason two is that the character under suspicion is my favorite character. I experienced a similar frustration in the first book of the series; I continually find myself wishing that the story followed her more. She is an ingenious character and there are times where I think that author Stieg Larsson does not embrace her potential enough. I want to know more about this mystery girl, or I want him to further develop the mysterious nature of her character. In fact, I don't even need to know much about her background, I just want to spend more time following her so I can get a grip on the way her mind works. Not only does she having a haunting past, she is extraordinarily removed from social life, has a photographic memory, and an insane yet persuasive set of morals.

The third reason I find this part of the book frustrating is that I haven't learned much. I learned some cool facts about hunting ammunition and a few new characters have been introduced, but that is about all that can show for the past 12% of the book. I know, it's supposed to be suspenseful, and evidently that suspense is effective, but often times it feels the suspense is pushed too hard. It's no longer just come on, I want to know! It has reached a point of come on, get me through this boring part please! I have never read a book that is straight through action - no overly drawn suspense. I have read plays of this fashion (namely The Pillowman) but never a book. Even Harry Potter, of whom I am a die-hard fan, has his share of seventy to a hundred page dry spells. It is in books like these, like Harry Potter like The Girl Who Played With Fire where it drives me crazy when the suspense goes on too long, because the characters have such potential that it is too good to waste time lolly-gagging when you could be developing.

Do me a favor and comment on this post with a great action packed novel that you have read that does not have stale suspense in it. I cannot think of a single one, and this makes me wonder if the stale suspense is what makes the action so good. Are boring parts of a book necessary to make the reader appreciate the thrilling sections? I would like to be able to answer this question with an "oh hell no" but I don't have the evidence to back it up. So help me out if you can!

On the relationship between the Ordinary and Extraordinary

Let me warn you ahead of time that the nature of this blog entry is basically word vomit. It is my almost entirely candid thought process spilled out onto a page, so enjoy, and good luck keeping up.

Mr. Wallace, according to your essay How Tracy Austin Broke my Heart, the tennis protégé’s autobiography was an inadequate account of her story. It was disappointingly cliché and so typical to the average sports memoir. This was especially disappointing to you because you feel she has a worthy story to offer. In fact, you progress to say that her boring memoir is a necessary evil because a great athlete’s dumbness is the essence of her gift. The athlete’s ability to dismiss thoughts and instead accept the reality of a moment makes her uniquely able to handle the intensity of performing in front of a crowd. The cost? The simplicity of emotion the athlete experiences often does not translate to us viewers. Instead of accepting that Tracy Austin “was thrilled” – and that’s all – after winning the US Open at age 16, we grow angry at her poor conveyance of the mind-blowing event. Sports autobiographies often fall short of reader expectations due to this mental divide between great athletes and their fans.

From my interpretation, those are your feelings on the sports autobio. I think that is a unique and plausible point of view. I don’t bother with sports autobiographies, so I am ill equipped to contrast this philosophy with my own. However, I am inclined to ask you, where does that leave us as normal people? We love the sports, we crave the dramas the athletes have to share, but we can hardly ever seem to get a reliable first hand account. This concept has never bothered me in the past. Like I said, I do not often bother with sports autobiographies. I read what magazines and mostly what Wikipedia has to say about an athlete. I find it is a compact and informative source that (contrary to accusations) is accurate enough for my satisfaction. I guess I am more interested with the stories the athletes star in rather than how those experiences made them feel.

But now, having read your article, I feel a little jipped. Why should world class athletes be privy to the inner workings of physical phenomenon’s that I will never understand? Granted, they busted their asses off for years, sacrificed normal lives, in order to achieve their greatness. Still, the thing that makes the difference is that these people are born athletes. From the womb, if they choose to embrace their different-ness, they lead different lives than we do. Again they do sacrifice normal lives in order to become great. But the difference is that in the media there are accurate portrayals of the average-joe’s life. Even if the athlete can’t experience this lifestyle hands on, they can clearly see what it is like for us. Who create these snapshots into our daily lives? Geniuses, of course: people who, contrary to athletes, understand human nature on a deeper level. So geniuses are out there to help the rest of the world think, understand, and imagine on a level closer to their own, and athlete’s are out there for…entertainment? But so are books. Instant entertainment? Maybe athletes invite us closer to the thoughtlessness of physical triumphs by capturing our attention so acutely as we watch.

I again return to my initial question; where does that leave us normal people? You could take the viewpoint that we are the ultimate consumers of society. The athlete sacrifices the luxury of normalcy to provide us with an excuse to stay glued to our couches on a Sunday afternoon. The genius abandons any hope of seeing the world from a simple and happy eye to motivate us, the less wise, to see with greater depth. And we, somewhere in the middle of the two, are blessed to wish we are closer to either of the two cursed extremes. It sounds pretty right? But the loophole is where does a genius find inspiration? Us. Where do athletes get the boost of motivation to perform their best? Fans.

A third and final time, I return to my question; where does that leave us? It leaves us with the responsibility of ogling. Our job is to occupy the middle ground watching the geniuses and athletes change the world. If we weren’t here wishing we were them, whom would they have to pull in the wake of their success? Whom would they have to envy?

I have Considered the Lobster, and here's what I think

So far, as I’m reading this essay by David Foster Wallace called Consider the Lobster, I have had two of what I call “thinker’s thoughts”. Thinker’s thoughts, for those who are not familiar with the term, are global makes-you-think thoughts. They often come to me in the shower, or late at night when I’m outside. They also sometimes are sparked by quality literature or by a thought-provoking film. The first thought was about social status, and how it literally affects everything. According to this essay, it even affects the way we taste. Lobster, back in the 1800s, was seen as an insect of the sea instead of a delicacy. Only the poor ate it, mainly because it was dirt cheap and very plentiful on the east coast. It was also served to inmates in prison, however not more than once a week because that was considered cruel and unusual punishment. Today, a good lobster entrée is usually one of the most expensive items on a classy menu. Still, eaters find the lobster worth dropping $30 on an entrée, because it is such a delectable treat. My thinker’s thought was not so original; it was strongly led by the writing. Still, this morning when reading about the shifting value lobster over the years I came to the startling conclusion that social status affects even the most basic of senses, such as taste.

This is pertinent to a conversation I was having last night with a couple of friends. We were talking, and someone asked the question, what if there was no type of reflection? No mirrors, no cameras, no reflective quality to water and steel…if we never saw ourselves, how would we look? How would we eat, dress, act? Our only basis of our own image would be analysis of the people around us. In a world where we depend on others to understand our physical appearance, would brutal honesty be better appreciated? This is a huge and impossible to measure what if, but it’s an intriguing topic to ponder, especially after seeing how appreciation for lobster has followed its social implications. The lobster example shows how deeply intertwined logic and emotions are to physical experience. If we couldn’t see ourselves, would our eyes filter other images in a different way? Would the brain send a different type of message to the eye, making us more or less objective to the things we do see?

I guess this entry doesn’t have much to do with the essay itself, or David Foster Wallace’s literary technique. Regardless, the essay sparked a train of thoughts of me that have little to no use in the real world, but they certainly make a body reflect and connect.

My second thinker’s thought was sparked by Wallace’s discussion of the ethics of eating lobster. After coming to the research-based conclusion that it is probable that lobsters are highly sensitive to pain, Wallace asked the reader if it is ethical to eat lobster. As a pescatarian, I think I have something to say on the ethics of eating lobster, and that something is that it is completely acceptable. “Torturing our food” is what we do to all the animals we consume. We torture veal by forcing it to live in a box without room to walk. Food production companies torture pigs and chickens and cows by forcing them to live in confined areas where they often eat their own fecal matter for sustenance. (I watch documentaries on animal planet) This is torture, and the fact that we don’t see it occurring on the stoves in our kitchens doesn’t make it any less real. Even though I am a pescatarian, I have little aversion to eating meat. I simply don’t like the taste that much – though I love fish and depend upon it as a source of protein. Also, sushi is my favorite food and I couldn’t dream of giving it up. Case in point, I’m not a pescatarian because I am sensitive to animal rights, it’s more of a personal preference. In fact, when reading the article about suffering lobsters, I found myself growing hungry for some of the delicious crustacean. Sure, we torture them. We could all eat salad instead of lobster and save innocent animals a whole lot of pain. Thanks to the nearly universal belief that humans are superior beings to other animals, this is not a common preference. It’s yummy, it’s not endangered, and it’s accessible – so we eat it. Wallace also makes an analogy that events such as the Maine Lobster Festival are comparable to medieval torture festivals. He suggests that we only justify this public massacre of animals because of a selfish desire to enjoy the food. I have a counterargument for each of these statements. Comparing the MLF to a torture festival is like comparing slaughterhouse killings to serial killer murders. Both are extreme statements that could be strongly argued against. The reason that the world is nowhere close to seeing animal cruelty on the same level as human torture is because we are selfish and self-righteous beings. The reason that medieval torture festivals grew to be socially unacceptable is not because they are morally unethical – they just don’t benefit us enough. Sure, they were entertaining back in the day, but they did not quench the desires of any innate senses. The juicy taste of meat on the other hand directly satisfies the taste receptors. This shows us that ethics are pliable to the will of innate desire. So, Mr. Wallace, my answer to your question is that it does not matter if it is ethical or not, because as selfish and superior beings, our motive will always lie with our simplest and most urgent desires.

Confusions about Katurian: The Pillowman

I am intrigued by inconsistency of Katurian, the main character of The Pillowman. Either it is one of those plays where a different dynamic of the character is revealed with each scene, or he is a poorly constructed contradictory character. A few things that are inconsistent about him are his loyalties, his reaction to pressure, and his proficiency as an author.

In the first scene of the play, Katurian is a low status submissive character. He allows the police who are interrogating him to criticize the intelligence of his parents and (paraphrasing) “does not disagree” that they are “stupid fucking idiots.” His reluctance to defend his parents, who we later find out are quite an intelligent pair, shows his fear and makes the two police officers confident that when they knock him around he won’t fight back. Katurian further lowers his status in the eyes of the police when they are making him guess why he has been taken in for questioning. He assumes that he has been taken in because of his stories, which we later find is partially true, and that the government thinks they have some type of political undertone. With this idea in his head, Katurian starts to denounce all political writers on a long spiel about how “story tellers are meant to tell stories” and “if you have a political axe to grind, don’t do it through writing”. Katurian, with no provocation from the police officers, bashes on fellow writers in order to prove himself innocent. I interpret this as lack of loyalty not only to other authors, but also to his own work.

There is one cause in this first scene that sets Katurian off, and that is when the two police officers suggest that they have been torturing his special needs brother, Michael. Once Michael is mentioned, Katurian beefs up and gains some authority. As readers, we see that the police have finally hit home and touched upon the one thing that really matters to Katurian. He grows angry and demands to see his brother, saying he will take as much torture as they will bring, but he will not say another word until he is allowed to see his brother. In this first scene it is pretty clear that Michael is the most important thing in Katurian’s life. This also appears to be true in the second scene, however in the third it seems that his loyalty lies most deeply with his stories. In this scene, he is speaking to Michael in Michael’s cell and says if the police officer would burn two out of the three of them (Katurian, Michael, and the stories) he would have them save the stories. At the end of the play, Katurian will either be the proficient author or the guilty brother, and if he is unlucky, both. As his loyalties shift and expand through the scenes, he seems to gain courage and status. I think his fate is in his hands, though the police officers seem to think that it is in theirs. It will come down to where his loyalties lie – that will be the deciding factor of Katurian living or dying.

Katurian is also inconsistent in the way he reacts to pressure. There have been two key moments of pressure thus far in the play. The first is in the opening scene when the two police officers are interrogating him. As I have already discussed, Katurian is generally submissive in this scene. He lacks the courage or motivation to stand up for anything important in his life until his brother Michael is mentioned. In this instance, Katurian displays indecisiveness. He does not do anything to help him out of this vulnerable position he is in (until Michael is mentioned and he takes some authority). The second moment of pressure is a flashback to Katurian’s childhood. His parents have seen his potential as a writer, so they spoil him and love him and treat him with the utmost care. One day, he finds that the room next to him, which he always believed to be empty, was where they keep and torture his special needs brother, Michael. This is the second moment of crisis in the play. Instead of approaching the situation passively as Katurian from the first scene would have, he walks into his parents’ bedroom and swiftly suffocates each one with a pillow. From one point of view, his behavior is consistent in that Michael is his constant motivator for Katurian to take action. On the other hand, his ability to react so decisively as a child contradicts his non-confrontational nature as an adult. In which instance does he act with grace under pressure? He never shows remorse for murdering his parents. In fact, he implies when talking to Michael in the third scene that he does not believe this act will send him to hell. Child Katurian from scene two shows that he can swiftly make a decision that he never comes to regret. Adult Katurian lowers his charactorial status through his lacking decisiveness. Though Child Katurian committed the heinous crime of killing his parents, it seems that in context, this was his more graceful moment of the two. Does this mean that with age, he is losing the ability to act in the moment? Or maybe it is merely he cannot physically see Michael’s pain in this second moment of pressure, so he is less inclined to make a dramatic gesture. Either way, it is clear that Katurian’s reaction to pressure develops with time.

One final element of Katurian’s character that I am grappling with is how good of a writer he truly is. Or, perhaps, how much faith the author of the play, Martin McDonagh, has in him. In my experience as a reader, when an author wants to emphasize the skill of an author in their story, he chooses to omit the actual stories the author writes, and instead just describe around his or her work. McDonagh on the other hand goes straight for the money and has Katurian read his best story aloud to the police officers in the opening scene. Maybe this is just a representation of McDonagh’s confidence in his own literary craft, however it automatically belittles the skill of Katurian. The plot of the story he reads aloud is creative and edgy, but the story itself is nothing special. This story, his best story, was the only one that was ever published. That also seems curious to me. When a short story is published, it is almost always vastly changed by the editors and the magazine after it is signed over. Short story authors with whom I have spoken usually say that they learn to separate themselves from the work that they publish. This way, they are not emotionally distraught when they see the changes in the final piece. The work that they truly value as art is the stuff that they write for themselves. This is why it seems curious to me that Katurian’s favorite work of his is his one published work. It seems, dispassionate, to me. When paired with his questionable loyalty (to Michael or to his stories) it is hard to measure if he is all that skilled or all that passionate of a writer. This too will play into the decision he makes in his final moment of pressure that I predict will come at the climax of the play.

The loose strings of Katurian’s character make me curious. There is a chance that they keep me reading, but they also make me question McDonagh’s credibility as an author because I cannot yet figure out if these slightly contradictory pieces of his character are purposeful or accidental. I assume that the climax of the play will reveal my answer. I am slightly hesitant, but mostly eager, to keep reading because I really do like the play so far and don’t want to be disappointed. I guess there is only one way to find out…

Pride and Prejudice - in-text philosophies

I wanted to open up the summer with a light read, so naturally I chose Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I don’t know what turned me on to it initially – going in I had no idea what it was about (to be honest I was expecting more of a war story than a love story). Reflecting on it will be a bit of a stretch since it is no longer fresh in my memory, but it was a fantastic book so I think it is worth a blog post.

Pride and Prejudice is filled with little proverbs. Most of these snippets of wisdom come from the two main characters, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. For example, there is a scene when Elizabeth compliments the humility of Darcy’s dear friend Mr. Bingley. In response, Darcy shoots a line at Bingley, “Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.” Quite the statement for casual conversation, don’t you think? Darcy’s words are both aggressive and insightful.

The aggressiveness supports the image that Darcy exudes at the start of the novel of being bright yet self-righteous. Even in a conversation among friends, he feels the need to assert his superiority, though it comes at the cost of degrading his best friend. The insightfulness of the quote made me wonder if the average Joe of the late 19^th century was far smarter than our generation, or if Austen used her characters as outlets for her personal philosophies. Granted, all writers do this to an extent – writing is a fantastic outlet of emotion. Her philosophies are more “in your face” than most authors, though.

Margaret Atwood for example writes some thoughtful short stories starring middle-aged couples. Had I not read her bio before reading the books, I would not have picked up on the feminist implications in her short stories. Since I did, I recognized that these stories have a trend of strong, intelligent women who cannot reach their potential because weaker male characters hold them back. To the uninformed eye, the hints at feminism are subtle enough to plant a grain of thought in the reader’s head that maybe modern relationships between men and women generally suppress the woman.

Austen’s views on human tendencies are more pronounced than Atwood’s. After Darcy makes his explicit statement about the nature of humility, he proceeds to analyze the underlying intensions of Bingley’s words and actions. He spits Bingley’s words back at him accompanied with the theory that Bingley only said them to impress the ladies in their presence. His speech is all is very George Clooney-esque and is mildly charming to the reader. But the speech serves a greater purpose than to make the reader smirk and swoon a bit at Darcy’s superior intelligence. It also provides Austen with an outlet through which she can express her feelings on the flaws of the human race. By making her four main characters Elizabeth and Darcy, the profound characters, and Bingley and Jane, the two good-hearted characters, Austen uses Darcy and Elizabeth as her portals to critique well-meaning members of the human race. Bingley is the most likable male character in the book.

The forward presence of her philosophies presented through Darcy’s snappy remarks gives Austen’s book pace. His readiness to attack adds dynamic to the relationship between the four main characters and keeps the reader on his toes. I am tempted to assume that Austen has a similar flare to her personality and that as a woman in the late 19^th century, her writing was one of the only outlets for her brilliance.

Some Remarks on Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness

I am currently reading a book of David Foster Wallace essays including his 1999 passage, "Some Remarks on Kafka's Funniness". Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Kafka. I read bits of Investigations of a Dog, but found myself skimming because there was so much analysis and so little action. It was a creative idea; I admire the concept of writing from such a foreign point of view. I don't have the literary authority to suggest that Kafka could have encapsulated this point of view in a more grabbing way, but I will say that I struggled through it. Wallace's short essay on Kafka regard my reaction precisely. He says that American students struggle with Kafka's works because we fail to see the humor in it. Wallace cites Kafka's humor as being atypical to modern American humor. He classifies it as literalization of metaphor with an underlying essence of tragedy.

I both agree and disagree. I agree that I, and American student, did not pick up on much of Kafka's humor. His writing was ironic in some ways, and the absurdity of him writing from the perspective of a dog was funny, but not laugh out loud funny. Kafka's literalization of metaphor went right over my head. (In fact, after having it brought to my attention by Wallace's essay, I am tempted to pick up the story again and see if I can recognize it. Maybe it will make the story more...artful? Enjoyable?) The tough part about reading classic foreign literature is sometimes it is that sometimes the humor does not translate, both through language and time. Take Shakespeare, for example. His work can be a pain to read because it feels so foreign. However I love watching his plays acted out because they have an element of hilarity. Even Hamlet - a famous tragedy - is full of humor and irony that I did not pick up on when I read it, but was so apparent on stage. The same goes for Kafka. I missed a lot of it because it didn't translate clearly and I didn't think to search for it.

Humor is a sensitive technique. The ability to find it shows a person's full understanding of a story or situation. There are elements of Kafka's humor, such as his literal take on metaphors, that are typical of his work. They may come across more clearly to someone who follows his work more adamantly or who is familiar with his environment. Lack of these supplementary inlets of understanding hinders the modern American reader from fully appreciating Kafka's work.

On the other hand, I disagree with Wallace's idea that comedy underlined by tragedy is un-American. Seinfeld is an all American TV show. The people on that show have such sorry lives and as viewers we find it hilarious. For instance the one time that George Castanza finds any success is in the episode when consciously does everything the exact opposite of how he normally would. That right there is purebred tragedy. Michael Scott from The Office is another prime example of a tragically funny character, as is the dad from Modern Family. If anything, I would say that tragic comedy is the most timeless type, and that it is blindingly present in 21st century American entertainment.

I am someone who appreciates both humor and classic literature, and relishes in the moments when they meet. I agree with Wallace's analysis that there is a gap between the humor offered by a classic author and that perceived by the modern American reader. However I believe that unfamiliarity with context and author's style is more to blame for the gap than the reader's inability to perceive tragic humor.